


In my head

by Theatrebaby88



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Death, Depression, Major incident, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9240602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theatrebaby88/pseuds/Theatrebaby88
Summary: Jo Portman lives day to day with the memories of her past.





	

It seemed to always rain, it was endless, unceasing. The fading light of day gave the streets below a gloomy aura. Jo sat looking out of the window of the small apartment that had become her home long after she had been relieved of her duties on a permanent basis.

That was so long ago now, and yet it was a life she had never fully left behind, perhaps she just never knew how to let go.

The years had changed her, of course, as the change anyone. There had been hard times- times where she would wake in the night, times where a bottle of wine was more a friend that people, times where the ghosts of old friends seemed more real than those around her, but that was then.

Six years had passed and Jo had fought and forged a new life for herself. It wasn't much , in fact she was barely scraping by, but she was determined.

Her mother's illness had eventually taken her to the grave, her father had become sullen and disinterested and her brothers had their own lives now. She felt so alone sometimes, most times really; and tonight was one of those nights where the loneliness was felt more than ever. Jo closed her eyes and let herself think.

Adam was long gone, and God she missed him. Her last memories of him had been watching the news, seeing that plume of smoke and feeling so incredibly helpless. She felt guilty for being so dependent on him those months after they had been betrayed by Bob Hogan , she felt that maybe had she done more, maybe he would be here, maybe he and Ros... Ros..she was gone too. Killed in a hotel explosion. "Who was left? How many of us?" Jo thought aloud.

The internal answer tore a sob from her chest. There was her. That was it now, of those she had found a family in, those she had simultaneously loved and hated and of them all she was the only one who still remained, and that thought alone was incredibly hard to bare.

She should have been in her prime, at thirty-seven years old and no children or partner, she should have been working her dream career, been out at the weekends partying. But that was not her life, not any more. 

Her life now consisted of a dead end job that she hated, a cleaner, and she fucking detested it but after a breakdown and three years in and out of psychological units, it was all she could get- despite having the kind of resume that many would kill to have. Her 'Apartment' was three rooms, a living room-cum-kitchenette, small bedroom and a tiny bathroom. The center of London was getting more expensive and even Jo, once earning just enough to live nicely, was struggling just to make ends meet.

"Is this what it costs to serve your country?" She asked herself. "For all you give, is this all you receive? " The loneliness led to isolation, and it was all a downward spiral. Her father, in his own depression was incapable of reaching out, and in some ways she was too like him for that. They were now barely in touch. 

 

She reached for the remote and flicked on the news, it was habit now, it had been habit for over sixteen years. And it was all disturbing, but that was the job of the soldiers now, of boots on the ground and of MI-6, not section D, not Harry Pierce, not Lucas North, not Ruth Evershed, Adam Carter, Ros Myers, Zafar Younis, Malcolm Wynn-Jones or Colin Wells, Ben Kaplan or so many other, and it certainly was no longer the job of Joanna Portman. 

Her looks had stayed the same, mostly, she had let her hair grow out a bit, a few more lines creased the corners of her eyes, and at her lips due to her ten a day.  But the biggest physical change in Jo was her smile, it was never seen. Her eyes looked dull, lifeless and she had this constant look of deep sadness about her. 

Can someone die of a broken heart?

That was the question poised by a co worker later that evening during a night shift in a twenty-four hour supermarket. 

 

Jo just shrugged "No. I don't believe they can. I think the death of a broken heart it slow, it either heals, or it drags on, and I think that death of a broken heart is not physical but a long, slow thing that takes over a person, it doesn't let them go, its the death of a part of them, really." 

 

The co worker just stopped and set her mop against the wall. "That sounds, like some shit out of a book." She laughed.

 

Jo forced a smile, as she forced most things these days, "It..well, you did ask." She got on with her job, saying very little.

It was around eight in the morning, and the last evenings rain had long subsided. Jo put back her cleaning trolley and pulled on her coat before going to her car. 

 

It all happened in a moment. She tried to swerve, to avoid the on coming moped. The young man had only tried to overtake a car in front, instead he nearly collided with a red citron. 

Her car hit the barrier at forty miles an hour, not fast at all, but with a hard enough impact to turn the car up over the barrier and across another two lanes. 

 

 

Charles Portman picked up the phone. Seconds later he slammed it back on it's base and lifted his coat. He passed a wreckage on his way as he hit the speed limits on his way to the hospital.

He was led into a small room. He was expecting wires and tubes, he was expecting IV drips and machine's beeping and clicking. Instead he got silence.   There were no wires, no machine, no tubes or no drips. 

She was pale. He reached out to touch her cheek only to draw back at the cooling chill of her skin. 

This wasn't happening, it couldn't be happening. 

 

He sank into the chair, the nurse's words finally hitting him like a breeze block to the chest., and he wished that he hadn't ignored that last call, he wished he hadn't refused that invite for lunch, or a drink. He wished that he had said goodnight, or paid more attention when he saw she needed him. He wished he could have said so many things. 

He wished he had asked her how she was coping, as she had asked him. 

Now here was praying in vain to take her place, praying to try harder to be a good father as tears rolled down his cheeks. 

 

And in a way, somewhere that he wasn't looking just yet, he knew that now it was kinder, it was easier. That she would be free from her own prison, that she would no longer have to deal with demons of her past that she was never able to exorcise.  

 

It broke him more than he ever thought anything could the day he and his sons carried that coffin from the church, and it was the most horrendous feeling of emptiness as he watched that coffin lowered into the same plot as his wife. He had lost one to illness, and another to a moment's distraction. 

 

Time passed very slowly, and Charles was sure to spend time with his sons, his grandchildren and other loved ones. He picked up the phone more, he took up invitations. Life was short, and far shorter for some.

He visited the graveyard yard frequently, and was surprised to find a single yellow rose there one autumn day.  There was no note, nothing but a flower on a stone that read-

 

"Portman

In loving Memory of Patricia 

(Nee; Remington-Hobbs)

Loving wife and mother. 

1955-2014

"Always in our hearts."

Also her daughter

Joanna Megan

1979-2016

"At peace."

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
